What’s government’s job again?

It's playing out on a national scale right now, as the federal government weighs health-care overhaul and the sustainability of the U.S. Postal Service.

From baseball stadiums to power plants, prisons to water departments, the concept of government competing with private enterprise is front and center in the Victor Valley.

"There's just an inherent tendency in government — we call it a Superman complex — to say, 'If there's a problem, let government step in and take over," said Leonard Gilroy, director of government reform at the Reason Foundation. "There's a self-deception saying, 'We could do this better, we could do this cheaper, we could do this faster,' when in fact government is set up to be slow and deliberate."

That confidence most certainly drove Victorville to take over its private water companies two years ago, and must be playing into Apple Valley's belief that it can run a minor league baseball stadium better than its neighbor has.

That drive can also have serious implications on the economy, Gilroy said, as government threatens to put private businesses under, diverts money away from essential public services and leaves cities with massive operating budgets that often can't be sustained when times get tough.

Perhaps nowhere is this struggle more evident locally now than on the Victor Valley's fairways.

Hesperia bought its golf course earlier this month, primarily to take over the club's valuable water rights. Apple Valley is weighing whether to buy its embattled course again on Tuesday and a struggling Victorville is looking to lease its two courses out to a private operator.

"Clearly the availability of budget golf is not really a compelling public need," said Ronald Utt, senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation. "It's not as if this is a vital area that government has to step into, and with all levels of government running out of money it doesn't seem to be a particularly wise use of taxpayer money."

On the flip, resident Mark Yates is more concerned about the "disastrous" results he foresees if the town of Apple Valley doesn't move forward with taking over its country club.

"Home values in Apple Valley, which are already depressed, would be severally affected by a 180-acre unsightly brown scar in the heart of Apple Valley," Yates said, with much higher costs down the road to reverse that impact.But the other concern, Utt said, is that the government really has no incentive to keep costs down and generate a profit as private business does.

"If something is losing money as a private entity, government's just not that good at managing community enterprises, and so it usually becomes a heavily subsidized thing," Utt said.

"By and large they do a bad job and end up going in the red," Gilroy added.

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